I Got a Nikon Camera

♪

“ I got a Nikon camera. I love to take a photograph
So mama don’t take my Kodachrome away” ♪

All of us have had the experience of a song repeating itself over and over in our heads like a broken record. The song finally fades away only to be replaced by another one…and another. This universal phenomenon has a neurological basis, the specifics of which I cannot recall due to another universal phenomenon, memory loss with advancing age!

Lately, Paul Simon’s Kodachrome has been ‘that song’. Last Saturday, my self-selected birthday gift arrived, a Nikon D40. As I eagerly opened the box and inspected the contents, I was filled with a mixture of anticipation and dread. Would I ever figure out how to use this thing? The manual had terminology that was almost incomprehensible, and the camera itself had a dizzying array of menus, buttons, and dials. My previous experience with digital photography had been with my little Olympus point-and-shoot, and even that camera had posed a challenge.

During the past week, I’ve been getting acquainted with my Nikon. I’ve read the manual, borrowed books from the library, watched instructional DVDs, and spent hours on Flickr checking out other peoples’ photos. I’ve taken photographs of my cats, the great outdoors, and my beadwork and polymer clay pieces. Most of the shots have been real stinkers, of course, but the beauty of a digital is that you don’t have to pay for your mistakes, just press the little trashcan, and they’re gone! Here are some of my shots, stinkers not included:

Now I can say with confidence (?) that I ‘kind of sort of’ know the basics, although looking at the EXIF data page makes my eyes glaze over and causes my brain cells to stall. The ‘EXIF data page’, in case you don’t know, is a detailed record of all the settings- f-stop, focal length, shutter speed, etc.-that were used to take a shot. The experienced photographer looks at this page, and uses the info to adjust the settings for future shots. For me to use EXIF data in such a purposeful manner is a long, long way off! However, it is my hope that I can acquire enough skill to display decent shots of my work, both finished and in progress, and assemble a step-by-step tutorial or two. Up to now my photos have been of past work. Because I’ve been concentrating on photography, I’ve produced very little new work. To do that will require putting the camera down, cutting back on ‘Flickr time’, and getting my butt in my studio ! I am therefore going on record to state that the subject of my next post will be of my newest work, complete with photos. I promise !